Conservation and Communities

A massive decade-long study of Western Equatorial Africa’s gorillas and chimpanzees has uncovered both good news and bad about our nearest relatives. The good news: there are one third more western lowland gorillas and one tenth more central chimpanzees than previously thought.The bad news: the vast majority of these great apes (80 percent) exist outside of protected areas, and gorilla populations are declining by 2.7 percent annually.

A new WCS paper published in the journal BioScience finds that the enormous trends toward population stabilization, poverty alleviation, and urbanization are rewriting the future of biodiversity conservation in the 21st century, offering new hope for the world’s wildlife and wild places.

A team of researchers from The University of Queensland (UQ), Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), and other groups have found that increasing land clearing for logging in Solomon Islands–even with best management strategies in place – will lead to unsustainable levels of soil erosion and significant impacts to downstream water quality.

The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) announced today that a group of the world’s leading coffee companies has committed to addressing deforestation from illegal coffee production inside Indonesia’s Bukit Barisan Selatan (BBS) National Park – a key protected area for Sumatran tigers, rhinos, and elephants, and part of the “Tropical Rainforest Heritage of Sumatra,” an internationally recognised UNESCO World Heritage Site.

March 22, 2018 — Logging activities in biodiverse forests can have a huge negative impact on wildlife, particularly large species such as big cats, but a new study proves that the Western Hemisphere’s largest cat species—the jaguar (Panthera onca)—can do well in logging concessions that are properly managed, according to conservationists from the San Diego Zoo Global and the Bronx Zoo-based WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society).

Santa Barbara, Calif. (March 2, 2018) – The Science for Nature and People Partnership (SNAPP) announced the launch of five new multi-disciplinary teams aimed at tackling global issues including water quantity, poverty, sanitation, livestock disease, and drought.

It’s an age-old debate for coffee lovers. Which is better: Arabica beans with their sweeter, softer taste, or the bold, deep flavor of Robusta beans? A new study by WCS, Princeton University, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison appearing in the journal Scientific Reports has taken the question to unlikely coffee aficionados: birds.

WCS is pleased to announce that two of its conservationists, Dr. Nyawira Muthiga and Dr.Tim McClanahan, have been awarded the 2018 Award for Conservation Excellence (ACE). Drs. Muthiga and McClanahan were nominated together as one finalist.
The Award for Conservation Excellence (ACE) was created to recognize the extraordinary contributions made to wildlife conservation by the world’s leading scientists. Along with the other four finalists—Dr. Joel Berger and Dr. Ul...